Cranie misses Royals cup tie as Luton boss intends to rotate squad

Luton boss Nathan Jones has confirmed that Martin Cranie will miss tomorrow’s FA Cup third round tie with Reading and also admitted he intends to rotate the squad with a Championship fixture against QPR on Tuesday night.

The 34-year-old defender has played 17 times for the Hatters this term, but is the only absentee ahead of the clash, with full back James Bree expected to be fit.

Ahead of the game, Jones said: “Apart from Martin Cranie, we’re pretty much injury free which is good as we now have another game to fit in (QPR), so there's four quick games to come up where we’re going to need our squad and we expect everyone now to be right up to speed.

“We’ve paid every competition respect, we have a squad where we make sure we look ahead to Tuesday as well and not too far past Tuesday, as we know that we’re going be at it.

"We have four real tough games in terms of two at home, two away, and we know we're going to need everyone as the same 11 won't be able to put out the level of performance needed to get results.

“I’ll use our squad in the next four games.

"What order we do that is another thing, but we’ve got four games in quick succession, five really, when you think of the home game after Brentford.

"So, we’re going to need the squad and whatever order we do that, we’ll do that, but in every game we’ll have to pick a side to win the game because we want to breed that momentum and that wining mentality.

“We have a side in our mind, we worked a little today (Thursday) and we’ll work tomorrow and then we’ll pick that team.”

Luton and Reading are already well versed in each other's capabilities this term having met in the Carabao Cup and in the league, the latter contest taking place on Boxing Day.

Town triumphed in the first clash 1-0, before Reading took the honours just a fortnight ago, winning 2-1, as on playing them four times this term, Jones continued: “It’s crazy isn’t it and sometimes that happens.

"This has zero romance to it whatsoever and as I said, we would have played Timbuktu away preferably and not because we fear the opposition in anyway, but it would have been nice to have had something different.

"We know them, the preparation has been the same, everything has been the same, so it just hasn’t felt like a different FA Cup tie, but it will do come 12 o’clock on Saturday.”

Although the FA Cup has dropped down the pecking order in terms of importance for clubs over the years, Jones remains a big fan of the tournament, adding: “I like it, it’s a competition you remember.

"Growing up in our era, without the 40 live games a week that you can now watch, there was only one real live game on per year, the FA Cup final.

"You always looked forward to that when you started out, I remember being at Cardiff City, I remember being at Merthyr and the first thing you look at is that first round draw.

"Then can you get to that third round draw when the big boys come in? Can you get that draw?

"I’ve had some decent draws, Newcastle was the big draw when I was here, Tottenham when I was a player, so the FA Cup’s a wonderful, wonderful competition and we do look forward to it.”